To the Renewal
In my time the turning of a page, the loss of courage and rush to escape. Within the failure charred remains of villages in the forest and shoots of fervent green, their seeds cracked open by the incendiary heat of a landscape born in fire. I observe, I witness, and add my signature to the […]
Countless are the Bones
Countless are the bones beneath our feet, each sacrifice of those who’ve gone before gifts to the newly born. Present on moonlit nights, in fluttering trees, and the echo of owls, looking on with tender care as we find our way through the living dark. […]
Skies of Communion
Clouds settle on the sea and blanket the tree tops. The wet drip of the forest drums on the cabin roof while eagles pace from perch to perch along the coast line. We need the rain, the land already dry months before summer. Within the mist, the pinnacles of the city are far off and […]
How Old
How old will we be when the turning is complete, how old the earth is now or ever will be? How old the roads that carve the land or inner paths we’ve travelled? We all journey the mortal way and though not together the ancient river says we are, that we walk and walk again […]
Footsteps Gently Covered
The ebbing tide rushes south with the lonesome sound of stirring geese, the sway of high firs in a soft breeze. The living world breathes in light, exhales with the sound of wind as the green land rises from spring fed ground. I pile stones to mark the morning, a cairn of reverence beside the […]
Poetic Champions
After the sun went down the poetic champions descended from the forested hills to the stony point jutting into the sea. Sirius blazed overhead as did Arcturus, the stars of Orion and the great Bear. The champions had gathered for the moonrise and as the earth slowly revolved a bulb of illumination grew in the […]
Paths of Shattered Stone
Cold comes the morning with clouded skies and gray seas; birds taking shelter as winds increase, night’s disturbance spilling over into the day. The earth healing with wind and rain, calling from sea depth and high mountain to bridge these times of chaos left by the absent ones. I struggle with fault lines, finding my […]
Sacred Born
Daylight changes as winter dissolves into spring, trees shedding their ice in the warm air. I stir in my cave, having digested the dreams and phantom shadows, hungry now for color. It is the world I rise to and the green lens I look through to know my place on the endless shore. Beauty signals […]
Night Basket
The soft colors of budding trees, deep greens of fir and cedar, the startled look of squirrel, the steady gaze of crow, the sound of breaching whales and high pitched cries of eagle, human faces vast in number, the star reach broad and clear. On and on the roll call of creation, ten thousand times […]
Tir Na Nog
Paudriag spoke to me though from afar his voice both close and quiet, reminding me of the green sloping land and north the sea, shining and alive with ancient music. There is a place for him and many gone before who traveled to America where they’d never rest, returned now to Tir Na Nog, forever […]
Perhaps Today
Perhaps today the heartland will rise, prairies sing their ancient songs as broad lakes join flowing rivers unceasing to the sea. Though the noise of progress may demand attention, beneath disturbance are the clear tones of earth, quiet as a dirt road, fields green with spring. Perhaps we may forget or set aside the thoughts […]
Plum Tree Blossoms
There’s light upon the Colorado mountains, shining on the Wasatch and Sawtooth, over the Canyonlands and Great Basin to the deserts of Nevada and California. From the high chaparral of eastern Oregon pouring down the sentinel peaks through the gorge of the Snake and Columbia where the green swath of the Willamette leads to the […]
Washboard Road
This rutted track with pot holes and cuts, makes for rough travel. Perhaps I should have chosen a shorter course, taken the highway. Out on this spur of lonely landscape with wire fence and barren fields, two coyotes lope from cover, a raptor watches. Bouncing on the gravel I wonder at my choices, of wayward […]
Keeping Faith
Low clouds cross the valley in a dry southerly wind, the sun an occasional guest during months of rain feeding glaciers, mountain rivers, vast estuaries rimming the coastline. We depend on what we suffer, aspiring to heaven as we slog through puddles, our heads hooded against the sky. Bending with the wind we find suppleness, […]
Country Roads
When I think of America, the US that is, I think of John Denver and Country Roads. And just to show how out of touch I am when I think of that song I am warmed. I know about Vietnam and that gash of a wall, the hollowing of our midlands and desolate homeless camps, […]